


In Like a Lion

by lucybun



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-01
Updated: 2011-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 00:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/206913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucybun/pseuds/lucybun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John feels dried up after his return from Afghanistan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Like a Lion

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for thegameison_sh challenge on livejournal. The prompt was "spring."

He’d spent his time in the desert. Months of baking heat and whipping wind that stole your breath away. He’d known bone-deep thirst, known what it felt like to want just one drop of water so badly that you could sob. Dry, body-wracking sobs that hurt your chest and cracked your lips. He’d known a thirst that had gone beyond his body, too. A need for something pure and clean that could wash away the things he’d seen, the things he'd done, the things he'd had to do. He'd watched his blood soak into the sand and woken up in a tent with bags of the precious stuff flowing back into his veins. He’d returned to England bloated with pain medication and bag after bag of saline. But he still felt like a parched husk, a dried out shell of the man he used to be. Desiccated down to his soul, afraid there wasn’t enough water in the world to make it better.

He’d been learning to ignore it, learning to deal with it, when a great, dark storm-cloud blew into his life. That first case with Sherlock didn’t ease his thirst, but he was able to remember what he’d been like before. Before he’d been more than dust and cracked earth. He had run and laughed and lived again, if only for a few moments. His leg that had dried stiff in the Afghani sun became limber once again, and some small part of him inside felt the same way. He felt it moving behind his ribs, and, for the first time since he’d returned, he thought that perhaps, just perhaps, there was enough moisture in the air to keep it from crumbling.

And just that hint of life had been enough to unleash the beast again. The ravenous beast that demanded more, more, more. So he chased after more, chased after _him_. He followed him into alleyways and over train tracks and watched in shock as his own breath left puffs of white clouds in the cold, night air. He marveled that such things could come from him his lungs once again.

He ran and ran until he couldn’t run anymore. Until someone stopped him and took him away. He woke up to the smell of chlorine and felt the weight of his friend’s life on his chest. He stood there gazing at the pool, acknowledging the irony of the situation. The dry, little seed that had been John Watson had finally started to grow, had finally started to come back to life, and it was going to end here. Drowned and washed away, in water or in blood. When his towering cloud blew back in, gun in hand and cocksure as ever, he felt like sobbing once again. But this time, he thought, he might've managed tears.

He woke again with a needle in his arm pouring fluid back into his body. He looked up to see Sherlock standing next to his bed. As he lay there blinking, amazed once again to be alive, his friend smiled, and it was a blinding light. His rain cloud and his sun. The gentle shower and the temperate warmth of home that had let John reemerge from the hole he'd fallen into after the war. Right then, he felt damp and green and new. No matter how his body ached, he felt strong and resilient inside, where it counted. A sapling that could bend instead of break.

Sherlock took his hand, expression serious once again, as he said, “You’re alive.”

“Yes, I am,” he rasped. “Thank you.”

“You don’t remember. _You_ saved _me_.”

“I do actually remember, and that’s not what I meant.”

Not pretending to misunderstand, Sherlock said, “‘I want to do with you what Spring does to the Cherry Trees.’”*

“You already have.”

“You've done the same for me, but Spring comes around every year. Want to do it again? And again and again?”

And how could he say no? Why would he? He deserved the chance to bloom and grow year after year. He’d earned it. Earned the right to a fresh and vibrant life with the only man who had ever managed to slake his soul, to quiet that desperate beast inside. In like a lion and out like a lamb. He nodded his answer and felt a salt-water sting in his eyes. He wasn’t surprised at all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> *quotation from "Every Day You Play" by Pablo Neruda.


End file.
